Tough Skin Fades My Grief, Keeps The Pain Away
by Thousandsmiles
Summary: Scott contemplates about how they all aren't fazed as much as they should be by what happened to them.


**Hope you all enjoy. Takes place just going into season four, probably slight AU with the end.**

 **Disclaimer** **: I do not own Teen Wolf.**

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It was Stiles who brought it up first. It was casually said but seriously meant.

"You know, I should really be affected more by being taken over by a Nogistune."

And yeah, Scott reflected, yeah he should. But aside from the guilt, over the many people who had died, Stiles had come out of the whole situation quite fine. In fact he had been more affected after the Nematon.

In fact Scott reflected later than night, they had all come out fairly fine, which sort of scared him a little. With it in his notice now Scott reflected on the past. And sure enough he came up with examples to support his theory. Because it had been months after Allison's' death, and even thought it hurt, it didn't hurt as much as it used to. And even though it had hurt, so much, so much at the start, it hadn't stopped them. It hadn't stopped them from doing what they had to do. It hadn't crippled them and even after it all, when they'd had time to grieve, time to allow themselves to feel all that they should, to be crippled, they weren't. They didn't stop functioning, not for a week or a day. Just in little portions of time when it caught up with them and even then, those stopped within a month. They'd still catch little breathless moments every now and then but they were just bare seconds, easily shaken off.

Stiles' guilt over Allison's death too hadn't stopped him as much as Scott thought it would. He had spent an evening at her grave, and after that seemed to pull himself together. There had still been times when Scott caught him gripping things tighter than usual but they too soon passed quicker than they used too and then became quite infrequent.

They spoke and they cried, of course they had, but it hadn't been as long as they were supposed to, Scott was sure. He was sure because his mom and the Sherriff had both been giving them little looks whenever they had strayed too close to a topic that was supposed to be touchy but Scott hadn't realized what they meant until now. They had expected the topic to be too close, too raw for the kids when in fact it hadn't been.

Scott turned his thoughts to Lydia. Lydia who had lost her best friend and her boyfriend in one blow. Lydia who went back to school as the same time as the rest of them,who befriended Kira easily. Lydia who had no doubt spent many nights crying but who hadn't been stopped either. She bore her scars as the rest of them but there was no outward sign save the cessation of the amount of makeup she used to use. But she worked at school the way she always had. Her grades showed indicator of the havoc her life had gone through.

He himself had gone on to teach Malia about herself, teach her how to control herself.

He wondered if they had become numb but he didn't think so. It wasn't as if they didn't feel, hadn't felt all that they felt. They had felt everything they were supposed to, just, not as long as they were supposed to feel it. He pondered on the meaning of it. He didn't know what it was. As far as he knew they were always like this. Even when Erica and Boyd had died, they hadn't responded the way they should have. He wondered if it was a sort of defense mechanism, put there to protect their minds from breaking under the weight all they had seen and done. Or if it was just the way they were, if they had this kind of thing just because they could bear it.

Scott wondered if it was a bad thing because honestly, they should all be suffering from PTSD or something but they weren't. There was guilt and heart ache and pain and fear, but there was no crippling form of any of these.

They had scars all of them. They couldn't go through what they had and not have scars. But that was all they had besides a mellow form of hyper vigilance but that was an asset rather than a hindrance. In fact it was all more help than hindrance. The thought made him feel a bit guilty, because he supposed he should feel more for his friends, for his first love but Scott couldn't turn his back on this. He couldn't allow himself and the others to be crippled, to be hurt more than they already were.

Scott wondered he should be afraid of the way his mind worked by now. Maybe. Maybe not .Their skin had toughened and so they had lost some feeling but not too much, not so much that they had turned to monsters. Scott resolved to keep an eye on it but decided not to worry.

His thoughts turned to Derek. Right now he was worried about Derek because he hadn't retuned any of his texts and there were all those bullet casings in the loft. He would speak to Lydia and Stiles about it tomorrow.

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 _ **R &R Please!**_


End file.
